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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26129989">the Dragon's Pet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void'>local_doom_void</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, Except not really because Barty's a bit weird about love, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Kidnapping, Master/Pet, Other, Platonic Romance, Princes &amp; Princesses, Stockholm Syndrome</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:21:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,250</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26129989</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A prince is sent to rescue a maiden from a dragon and falls in love with the dragon instead.</p><p>The king really should have expected this.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bartemius Crouch Jr. &amp; Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Bartemius Crouch Jr./Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Bartemius Crouch Jr./Voldemort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>90</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the Dragon's Pet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabenschnabel/gifts">Rabenschnabel</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This all started when the lovely Rabenschnabel prompted me in our privated RP server on a Dragon!V AU where Barty, a prince sent to rescue the princess, kills the princess instead and stays on as the dragon's captive. It evolved a bit as I wrote it but here it be.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The dragon’s cave was not up a mountain. This was contrary to every piece of information that Barty had been handed, which universally assumed that the dragon’s cave was up a mountain. Specifically, up <em>the</em> mountain, the one with all the spires and crags of rock which had always been called ‘evil’, but whose inherent evilness nobody had ever explained to Barty. He did not have a sense of why the mountain looked evil, and couldn’t have explained it if anyone had asked.</p><p>In the end, he only discovered that the dragon did not live up this mountain because the thought of having to climb it made him dizzy. He didn’t think his horse would survive the journey, either, so instead of leaping right into it, he stopped and waited for a night or two. On the second day, he saw the dragon flying overhead, so far above him that it looked nothing more than a black streak of paint on the sky. This made him feel rather small and tiny in comparison, and he almost didn’t pay attention in favor of dealing with that feeling.</p><p>Fortunately for his time, he did pay attention. What he saw was the dragon totally ignoring the mountain, and flying past it into the lands beyond.</p><p>On the one hand, Barty supposed he wouldn’t need to scale a treacherous rock face. That was nice. On the other hand, though, he had no idea what was beyond the lower hills he would have to pass through to reach the other side. It wasn’t on his map and, to Barty’s knowledge, nobody had a map of that area.</p><p>For a moment he contemplated just going home. But then Father would be mad, and the Ambassador would make snide comments, and Father would probably join in, and Barty would be –</p><p>No. He didn’t see any reasonable option but marching into the unknown.</p><p>With a grand sigh, Barty stood up and started getting the saddlebags ready again.</p><p>The hills took three more days to pass through. He had to go slowly, because he didn’t want to get lost, and by the time he came out the other end he had gotten over his initial joy at being sent out on a quest that would take him away from the nobles, from Court, and from Father. Instead, Barty was feeling quite lonely, and rather sorry for himself.</p><p>He was supposed to fight the dragon. He didn’t want to fight the dragon. The dragon was so much larger than him, surely, and stronger, more powerful, and scarier. One wrong move and he’d be burnt to a crisp – one slash of its claws and he’d be minced Barty. It was enough to make him want to cry, which he didn’t, of course, because Princes and Men didn’t cry. (He did want to, though.) He wasn’t good enough at swordfighting and violent things to really warrant going up against a dragon.</p><p>He hadn’t even liked Bellatrix that much. She was mean. But then, he supposed even somebody like Bellatrix didn’t deserve to be kidnapped by a dragon…</p><p>… Why did dragons kidnap humans, anyway?</p><p>Barty distracted himself from his woes by pondering this question. In this way he passed another day of travel, and he moved into the forest beyond the hills, marvelling at the odd trees and plants, and wondering just where the heck that dragon could be.</p><p>On the second day he found a lake. Not more than five minutes after, he found the dragon, and had barely enough time to dive behind a rock and cower as the massive beast emerged from the depths. Rivulets of water streamed from its back, highlighting its shiny black scales. They seemed to glimmer, but maybe that was just the sunlight reflecting from the water. Barty could admit to himself that he didn’t really have a great view, anyway, and he didn’t want a better one when all was said and done.</p><p>The creature had a large crest of horns, sweeping back across the nape of its skull. They were nearly perfectly straight, as far as he could tell, and once again Barty desperately wished he could just go home. The mental image of his own limp body, pierced on those horns in the manner of a shrike, wouldn’t leave him alone. It wasn’t real, but Barty had long since learned that imaginary things could hurt him very much.</p><p>By now the dragon had finished tugging itself and its massive body out of the lake. It shook briefly, tail flicking, and then slunk into the forest with far more grace than should rightfully belong to anything so big. Barty would have expected it to lumber, at least a little bit. Instead it moved with a near-perfect slink, like it was some kind of overgrown, scaley cat.</p><p>He tried to make himself go back to his horse. Instead, he followed the dragon.</p><p>This wasn’t difficult, but it wasn’t exactly as easy as Barty had expected, either. For such a large creature it left barely any broken branches or leaflitter in its wake. There were tracks, but they were faint indentations, not deep impressions. They were big, too – Barty had to resist the urge to compare his hand with one, because he was pretty certain that doing so would only make him scared.</p><p>Finally, he peered around one last tree and saw the dragon disappearing over a tall, ancient, overgrown stone wall.</p><p>For a lovely moment Barty was distracted, and forgot all about the dragon. The stones were clearly carved, intentionally slotted into place, and the wall itself went off in both directions as far through the trees as he could see. So not only was it ancient, it was big – !</p><p>The people of his kingdom didn’t even know that there were ruins here! What could be behind that wall? Was this the only such place, or were there more? What kinds of people had lived here? Oh, he wanted to know everything! If only a dragon weren’t living here, he would run right back home and try to get some of the court scientists interested in studying the place.</p><p>Barty walked around the edge of the wall for a while, wondering just what its purpose had been. Well – it was a wall, he reminded himself. Walls protected things… so, what sort of place was inside, besides a dragon’s lair? His mind conjured up grander and grander images the more he walked, until he found what must have been a corner. Here the stones crumbled, and a massive tree had grown into the stonework, its roots curving around tumbled blocks of eroded stone. Barty had to halt for a moment just to take it all in, relishing the oldness of it all.</p><p>There was a sort of path up – not an intentionally made one, but a sequence of rocks and roots that looked climbable. Barty started up them, careful not to stand too upright, and peeked over the topmost root into the interior.</p><p>
  <em>Oh, wow – !</em>
</p><p>There were more stone buildings, with forms and shapes Barty had never ever seen from any architecture in his life. The castle back home was grand, of course, but the buildings that he beheld now were intricate in a way that the castle and all the buildings in his native kingdom of Ministerium could never have hoped to match. Each wall he could see was carved with massive reliefs of stone, detailed murals of human figures – maybe – going about all kinds of business that Barty couldn’t hope to comprehend. Some of the buildings were eroded, of course, collapsed – their murals worn away to faint impressions that he couldn’t make out. Great trees grew out of many of the buildings, and Barty could not see any dragons, but needed to see all of this more closely. So in he scrambled, traipsing through the deep grasses and tripping over hidden roots to reach the nearest intact relief. The people there wore clothing that looked alien to him, and for a moment he could only stand back, staring in awe.</p><p>A hot, humid burst of wind struck him, dislodging his hood and ruffling his hair. He frowned, and a voice spoke which wasn’t his own – a deep, inhuman voice, somehow both cavernous and soft, with the faintest of lisps hissing around its edges.</p><p>“And what,” it rumbled, “do you think you’re doing here, tiny thing?”</p><p>Dragons could talk, Barty thought dazedly. Nobody’d told him they could talk. This changed everything!</p><p>Wait a minute, said another part of him. It’s not just talking – it’s talking to me.</p><p>When he thought about this, all of his muscles made him aware that – yes – they had stiffened up, and they would not be unstiffening anytime soon. A large part of him wanted to curl into a ball on the ground and hope that the dragon would leave him alone. A smaller part of him was desperately, painfully curious, and somehow that part won. Stiffly, the prince turned towards the direction the wind had come.</p><p>A shiny, scaled black head hung into his path. This close, with most of the remaining water dried up, Barty could see that there was indeed a certain silvery tint to its scales – one he could only see when they caught the light in a very specific way. With the dappling of the massive trees across its head casting ever-changing, irregular shadows, it seemed as though the dragon had shifting stars scattered across its scales. Its eyes glowed. They were deeply red, in the same way that a large amount of blood in a bowl would become deeply red.</p><p>Barty opened his mouth to speak, and instead found his words had all dried up. He could only stare at the impression of huge, sharp teeth inside the dragon’s partly open jaws. The canines were definitely longer than his hand. He wouldn’t be surprised if all the other teeth were just that long as well.</p><p>The massive head tilted, and its eyes narrowed. “Well, morsel? I asked you a question.”</p><p>It inched closer to him. Barty frantically shook himself, or tried to – he thought he might have just made himself look like he was having some kind of fit.</p><p>“Ah,” he said, his eloquence escaping him.</p><p>“I,” he tried again. His father’s voice came to him, as if he stood just behind Barty, even though that couldn’t possibly be so. <em>Tell it!</em> he said. <em>Tell it what you came to do, coward. Make sure it knows, and then do it.</em></p><p>Barty’s eyes fell once more on those teeth, and he thought about how quickly it could swallow him whole – worse, how quickly it could bite his torso off, leaving him alive for scant minutes to experience being swallowed.</p><p><em>Coward</em>, his father said.</p><p>Well, then, maybe –</p><p>Barty took a shuddering breath.</p><p>“I was sent here to fight you and kill you,” he said, lifting his hands slowly, palms out, “but I don’t want to. I’m – ” He gulped, because the dragon had reared back and bared its teeth even more. It did not keep moving, though, so he hurried on. “I’m not silly enough to think I could succeed. You’d just eat me, or – burn me up, or something. I’m – I’m also supposed to rescue the girl you have taken hostage. Her name is Bellatrix. I’m supposed to return her safely to her family. Would you – please – perhaps consider allowing her to return home? I’m afraid I don’t have a lot to bargain with, if you wanted to bargain, but – I guess you could eat my horse?” he said miserably. “Just not with the saddlebags on, please. I need those to hold food.”</p><p>At least the dragon’s teeth were back inside its mouth. Barty really liked that, but it wasn’t saying anything, and he wasn’t sure where to go when he was just being bluntly stared at – as if the dragon were trying to dissect him with only its vision.</p><p>“I don’t know why you took her,” he tried. “But – she has two sisters, and a mother and father. I’m sure they all miss her terribly, and she them – and she might be scared, too – ”</p><p>There was a low, long rumbling noise, like thunder.</p><p>“Scared?” the dragon snorted. “You call banshee-noises scared? Humans have gotten much odder since last I looked in on them.”</p><p>“Um,” Barty said, and didn’t say anything else, because Bellatrix’s screeching could sound quite a lot like a banshee.</p><p>“No,” said the dragon, to Barty’s despair – but then it went on. “I’ve a better idea.”</p><p>What idea is that, Barty wanted to ask.</p><p>He didn’t get a chance to ask, though. The dragon’s head moved forwards again, and before Barty could do much more than try to back away, he had been scooped up on top of its snout and the ground was running very, very far away from him indeed. He yelped, a strangled, high-pitched noise, and clung desperately to the scales underneath him lest he fall.</p><p>“Wh – what are you – ” he gasped. “Let me down! Please, I really don’t like heights, oh <em>no</em> – ”</p><p>He couldn’t take it anymore, and had to screw his eyes shut. The scales at least weren’t perfectly smooth, so he could kind of dig his fingers into these little natural crevices. It was nowhere near a full handhold, though, and he held his legs stiffly so that he wouldn’t accidentally unbalance himself by flailing, and fall.</p><p>The dragon’s head tipped forwards, as if to drop him. Barty wailed, imagined himself splatting all over some ancient stonework, and struggled desperately to keep his hold. If the dragon hadn’t moved, he thought it might have worked – but instead, the creature shook its head, and Barty’s fingers slipped from their pitiful handholds.</p><p>He fell.</p><p>But he hit the ground almost immediately. His tailbone would probably he bruised, but all told, he hadn’t splattered against some horrifyingly unforgiving stone. There was soft grass beneath him, and nothing more. He hadn’t broken any bones either.</p><p>“Oh,” he whimpered, and sat up.</p><p>He looked around just in time to catch sight of a dark haired girl with hooded eyes staring at him in shock. Her mouth was partly open and for once, she was silent. Barty couldn’t tell why she was silent, though – it could just as easily have been spiteful enjoyment as it could be shocked silence.</p><p>“Bellatrix – ”</p><p>The dragon’s jaws snapped closed over her entire body down to the knees, and in a blink, she was gone.</p><p>Barty stared.</p><p>He kept staring for a good long while, but she didn’t come back, and the dragon didn’t come back, either. Eventually he shuffled backwards, until he could lean against a cold, ancient stone wall, and wrapped his arms around his knees. He didn’t sleep a lot, which made him sad and tired when the sun rose again, and he had a crick in his neck from when he had managed to doze with his chin propped awkwardly on a knee. He…</p><p>He didn’t know what to do now.</p><p>Bellatrix was dead. Barty didn’t feel too bad about this, though of course it was terrible that she’d been eaten by a dragon. That had to be an unpleasant way to go. Either way, it meant that his quest was done, over with, irrelevant. There was no point at all in retrieving a corpse. He didn’t think he’d want to retrieve her, anyway. She was in the dragon’s stomach. No, thank you.</p><p>After a long while spent still sitting there, Barty got up and tried to leave. He soon found that he couldn’t. He had been dropped into some kind of – ancient courtyard? It was grassy here, and there were a couple groves of trees that bore an orange sort of fruit Barty had never seen before, but in places he could see ancient stones peeking up through the soil that looked like flagstones. The ground was altogether more level than he’d have expected, too, and the small pond that he found had old, wet, mossy stones circling it, as if it had been artificially made or diverted once upon a time. On one end it fell down from the top of a great rock wall that seemed far less decomposed than Barty would have expected, and which, oddly, didn’t even have vines growing on it. At the other end it vanished into a small, grate-covered opening in another wall, which also seemed incredibly well-kept and didn’t have any vines growing on it.</p><p>He followed the strange walls, and found they went the entire way around. There was a place on the far end where it looked like, once, there had been some sort of earthen stairway or hill down, but the earth that had once made it up was totally gone. He had no way back up.</p><p>So…</p><p>What did he do?</p><p>It was with a strange, bubbly feeling in his stomach that Barty realised the first obvious answer.</p><p>He couldn’t go back home.</p><p>His horse was far away and tied to a tree near the lake from yesterday. All his weapons and food were there, too. He only had one bushwhacking dagger on him, and his dark gray traveling clothes. He didn’t even have his money, which he’d heard dragons liked to hoard in massive heaps. Nothing to bargain with, and nowhere to go… and he didn’t know where the dragon was right now, or what it wanted with him. He would have no choice but to wait, of course. He couldn’t get out of – wherever here was.</p><p>… It actually wasn’t… that bad, all things considered.</p><p>He couldn’t go home.</p><p>He couldn’t. It just wasn’t possible. So… so…</p><p>So why bother, then?</p><p>Barty sat back down on the grassy floor as he experienced the full force of this realisation. He couldn’t go home, couldn’t possibly be expected to try, so – so he didn’t have to try. He didn’t have to go home. He would never have to see Father again, or the Ambassador, or any of the nobles and their children. He would never have to endure hours upon hours of breakless training sessions again, would never have to be yelled at to hold his tongue, would never have to…</p><p>He could just be free.</p><p>He had to lay on his back and stare up at the sky in awe, just to be able to think that thought. The longer Barty lay there, the wider the overjoyed smile spread across his face.</p><p>Free. He was free. Free, free!</p><p>“I appreciate that you don’t scream.”</p><p>Barty blinked, and returned to himself. The dragon was back, too, head and neck hanging down from the wall above to peer at him. For the first time, Barty realised that since the dragon had been the one to scoop him up and put him in here, he had, technically, been kidnapped by it. And so easily!</p><p>He pouted at it for a moment before sitting up. “You kidnapped me,” he proclaimed.</p><p>“Pardon?” The dragon’s large eyes blinked at him slowly, and Barty wondered if it actually knew what kidnapping was. “I found your horse. It was tasty, but I did save your bags, as you requested.”</p><p>The massive head tilted, and a pair of saddlebags that had had their straps looped over one horn slid off and to the ground near Barty. There was a dark stain on the side of one of them, and Barty cringed at the thought of his poor horse.</p><p>“You just ate her?” Barty said sadly. “Just like that?”</p><p>“She was annoying, and screamed far too much. I already like you better.”</p><p>“Eh?” Barty said, and looked up in confusion. “What could she have done to annoy you? She was just a horse…” He pouted again, and looked back down at the saddlebags.</p><p>“... You are talking about your horse,” the dragon rumbled, head rearing back up into the air, and Barty nodded. “No. The horse was not annoying. I believed you were referring to the previous human.”</p><p>“Oh,” Barty whispered. “No, I… I didn’t really… like her all that much.”</p><p>It seemed a rude thing to say, but it was true. He really hadn’t ever liked her all that much.</p><p>The dragon was still watching him, head cocked to the side. Barty got up and started cautiously going through his bags. The remains of his loaf of bread had been a little squished, but the rest of his food had somehow survived intact and without blood getting all over it. That was nice, at least. His journal had a bit of a bloodstain creeping across one corner, and he had to quickly rescue it from the bag and hurry it over to a sunny flagstone so that he could spread it out to dry. The quill was a wreck, but somehow, the inkwell hadn’t been smashed.</p><p>None of his weapons or money were there. He didn’t find this terribly odd. Why would the dragon have given them back? “Thank you,” he said anyway, because that was polite. “Can I ask you a question? Well – ” He paused. “Two questions, I think.”</p><p>The head descended back towards him. “You may ask.”</p><p>“Why am I here?” Barty asked. “And – do you have a name?”</p><p>One of the fins on the side of its head – was that an ear? – flickered out and then back against its head. “I am Voldemort,” it said grandly. “And you are here because I have decreed it so.”</p><p>That isn’t much of an answer, Barty did not say aloud. He was quite used to non-answers like this, and he knew a lot about how trying to dig for more information would get, at best, silence. At worst…</p><p>Well, from Father, it would only be a tongue-lashing at best, and extra-long, back to back training at worst. Barty wasn’t sure what the dragon would consider appropriate retribution, and so he stayed quiet. It wasn’t like he would find anything out for asking, anyway, even if it didn’t hurt him.</p><p>Instead, he nodded, and gathered all of his belongings (except the journal, which was still drying) back into the unstained bag, and tucked it underneath a nearby tree before going back to the stained one. He didn’t know how to get bloodstains out of leather, and wasn’t sure he would have access to the right tools, even if he did know how to do it. He guessed… he’d just have to let this dry, too, and then see if it were still usable after that?</p><p>He found a tree branch to hang it over, and went back for the other bag. He was hungry, and the dragon – Voldemort, if he was pronouncing that right – was still watching him.</p><p>“Can you at least tell me if you’re going to eat me?” he asked. The cured meat he had been about to bite into suddenly seemed quite unappetising. “And, if you’re not, are you going to feed me? I don’t really fancy starving to death.”</p><p>“I do not plan to eat you,” Voldemort hissed slowly. “You will be given sustenance. How long will that amount there last?”</p><p>Barty picked through the contents of the bag. “... Two days?” he hazarded. “Counting today?”</p><p>There was a long, drawn out rattling noise from Voldemort. “I see,” it rumbled, and withdrew its head and disappeared. Barty frowned after it for a while, but when it didn’t reappear, and his stomach decided again that it was hungry, he turned his attention back to the food.</p><p>For the rest of the day, the dragon didn’t reappear, so Barty spent the time trying to figure out if he could whittle a dead enough stick into some kind of writing utensil.</p><p>On the second – third? – day, Voldemort still did not reappear, so Barty warily ate the rest of his rations slowly over the course of the day, and took his boots off. His feet stank – he rolled up his trousers and spent a while with them stuck into the rushing water near the grate, until they were cold and wet, but much less stinky.</p><p>He was sort of worried about the state of his clothes. They were meant for travel, so they could do with being worn for days on end, but he would still have to change and wash them at some point.</p><p>He tried not to think about it, and fell asleep under one of the trees. When he woke up, there was a bag full of cured meats, sturdy travel bread, and even a few fresh vegetables lying next to his head, but no dragon anywhere to be seen.</p><p>Everything somehow fell into a routine.</p><p>At first, Barty had contemplated using his bushwhacking dagger to carve tally marks into one of the walls. Then he had gone around the place looking for a wall to carve into, and found that there were many other tally marks. Counting them all up gave him far more days than Bellatrix had been captured for, and he wondered who had made them, and how long ago they had been made. In the end he decided not to even bother making any marks when he would have to distinguish them somehow from the others. This felt simpler, too. Cleaner. More like...</p><p>Well. He wasn’t going back home anyway. What did days matter, except in the moment of sunlight versus moonlight? He could see those facts with his eyes whenever he needed to.</p><p>So it was that he had no idea how many days had passed. At first, if he concentrated, he could count backwards with some confidence. Eventually he stopped doing that for a while, and the next time he tried, he got all mixed up and found he had no idea how long it had been.</p><p>He didn’t feel too upset about it.</p><p>Voldemort brought him food whenever he was close to running out, and checked on him at least every few days. Maybe every four, sometimes? Barty wasn’t sure. Regardless, Barty always had plenty of time to tell the dragon he was running out of food, and a couple of days later, a new bag would be waiting for him.</p><p>He even had a couple of things that weren’t food, because once he’d worked up the nerve to ask, the dragon had started giving. First he got a canvas and a bit of rope that he’d rigged up in one of the groves of trees, so that if it rained (again), he would have a dry place to sleep instead of huddling under one of the taller, thicker-leaved trees and being unable to sleep because no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to stay dry.</p><p>Next he’d asked for a small trowel, because he’d taken some of the seeds from the vegetables Voldemort always used to top off the bags of food supplies, and he wanted to try planting a garden in one of the grassier areas that didn’t have any ancient flagstones buried under it. This too had been delivered, and though Barty didn’t have any actual plants yet, he had a few sprouts that looked promising. He took very good care of them, because he didn’t have much else to do.</p><p>Then he’d needed new clothes. Voldemort somehow procured two clean white linen tunics, and two pairs of plain brown cotton trousers, and Barty was finally able to peel his traveling clothes off of his body and wash up a little in the stream that evening before putting on the new clothes. </p><p>The dragon had forgotten pants, which took a little bit of getting used to, but the new clothes were a lot more comfortable than his grungy travel outfit.</p><p>He never asked to be let out, or released. He was quite certain Voldemort would say no. There was the possibility that it would make the dragon mad, too, and Barty wasn’t a fan of the idea of an angry dragon. Then, too, there was the fact that…</p><p>He wasn’t actually certain if he wanted to go back.</p><p>It was really nice here. Nobody yelled at him or told him he wasn’t good enough. It was just him, the quiet sounds of running water, a few birds who came down to nest in the trees, and a huge black dragon who – Barty thought – might have been staying for longer and longer each time he visited. Barty had just assumed Voldemort was a he, based on the low voice, but he supposed maybe all dragons had low voices. He never asked for confirmation, though, because it didn’t really matter. Voldemort was Voldemort. He knew a lot of things, especially about magic and history. He would even talk about them when Barty asked, which people never did. His voice was soothing with how deep and rolling it was, and once, Barty had even fallen asleep listening to the dragon talk when Voldemort had visited in the evening.</p><p>The more time passed, the farther away the kingdom seemed. He wasn’t sure why he had ever been so worried about it all. Being good enough, trying to please Father, pushing himself constantly for praise that never came… None of it even mattered now, when he’d ended up here. He wished he hadn’t cared back then, because maybe he would have been happeier – but then again, if he hadn’t cared back then, he might never have come here and ended up as Voldemort’s…</p><p>Voldemort’s… human? Was he like a pet? Was that what this was?</p><p>Barty paused from where he’d been washing some dirt off his trowel at the the grated end of the stream, and sat for a while with his chin in his hands so he could think.</p><p>Humans kept all sorts of animals as pets. Dogs, cats, birds… the people from the kingdom of Slytherin kept a lot of snakes, and once, at a very big gathering of kings and queens and nobles, Barty had even seen a young girl with a tiny mouse-like creature in a cage clipped to her belt. She’d taken it out and petted it when she thought nobody else was watching.</p><p>Cats and dogs couldn’t speak. Barty didn’t think mice-creatures could speak, either, but the snakes… He couldn’t understand them, but the people of Salazar really seemed to be able to understand them. They could pick up venomous snakes without even being bitten, just by hissing to them first, and just because Barty couldn’t understand what was being said didn’t mean nothing was being said.</p><p>From the perspective of a human, a non-venomous garter snake wasn’t very dangerous. Barty was pretty sure they had sharp teeth, so they could still bite you, but only if you were stupid and treated them poorly. It wouldn’t be a big deal, even then. Were humans like snakes to dragons? Was he the pet snake? Maybe that was why Voldemort could talk so naturally. Maybe he was to dragons what the people of Salazar were to humans.</p><p>A pet.</p><p>Huh.</p><p>Barty stared at his reflection in the rushing water for a while, and decided that he didn’t care if he was Voldemort’s pet. The dragon was nice to him. He’d never hurt him or told him cruel things, and he had brought Barty everything he had bothered to ask for. He got fed and he didn’t have to worry about, about… about anything.</p><p>He didn’t ask Voldemort if he was a pet when the dragon came to visit that evening. He did sit a little bit closer, though.</p><p>It was nice not to have to worry about anything.</p><p>Eventually, Voldemort not only stayed longer, but visited every day. Barty was glad of it, because it was always the most interesting part of his days when Voldemort visited. Where once the ex-prince had sat on the ground or under a tree a bit away from the dragon, now he would go right up to Voldemort and sit near the dragon’s flank, so that he could curl up and encircle Barty if he wanted to. Soon, this evolved into leaning against Voldemort’s side while they talked, feeling the rumbling of his vocal cords – if dragons had those – through his scales at the same time as he heard that low voice talk to him. Voldemort’s scales, while hard, were surprisingly warm, and sometimes Barty even fell asleep while leaning against them.</p><p>Voldemort didn’t mind when Barty babbled on and on about his day, and how well the garden was getting on. He never once told him to shut up.</p><p>Nobody had ever done that.</p><p>Barty wasn’t sure if a human being in love with a dragon was allowed, so when he noticed that his heart beat faster when he saw Voldemort’s dark scales, and that his chest felt warm and tight and happy when the dragon purred at him, he didn’t mention it.</p><p>(Had he mentioned that dragons purred? They did, and it was adorable.)</p><p><br/>
</p><p>“Would you like to go on a walk?” Voldemort asked one day when he had come to visit rather early in the morning.</p><p>Barty blinked sleepily up at the dragon. He wasn’t completely awake yet, because the sun hadn’t been up for very long, and he hadn’t had time to drink any water either. “Walk?” he ended up saying through a yawn.</p><p>Voldemort huffed and nosed at the human until he stood upright. “Wake up,” he commanded, and Barty tried to wake up. He rubbed his eyes furiously and shook his head, but when he tried to stand on his own, he still felt stiff and a little wobbly. Rather than fall back down ungracefully, he decided to fall forwards, and leaned against Voldemort’s snout for support.</p><p>“Barty,” the dragon growled.</p><p>“Me,” Barty agreed sleepily, and closed his eyes. “You’re really warm…”</p><p>That lovely warm head-rest suddenly removed itself from beneath him. Barty fell forward, only barely catching himself on his hands, and was instantly awake. However, he was so put out that he didn’t get back up, but flopped onto the grass instead.</p><p>“Why do I have to be awake so early,” he whined at the black-scaled head hovering over him. “This is cruel. Humans need more sleep than you do.”</p><p>“I suppose you’re no longer interested in the ruins, then?” Voldemort said with narrowed eyes.</p><p>“Ruins?”</p><p>Instead of replying, the dragon lifted his tail up and swept it about in the air, encompassing much of the walls behind him. Barty squinted at the walls that encircled his little sunken courtyard-habitat, and then looked down at the nearest patch of flagstones before returning his attention to the dragon.</p><p>“... I think I know this place pretty well by now,” he said slowly, finally sitting up. “Unless there’s a secret I haven’t found yet that you’re going to show me? Oh, is there a secret door behind the waterfall?! I’ve never seen a secret door before!”</p><p>Voldemort had the audacity to laugh at him. Dragon laughter didn’t sound much like human laughter – it was low, deep, and it rumbled like hissing water over river rapids. Nevertheless, Barty was experienced enough by now to recognise it, and he pouted until Voldemort stopped laughing.</p><p>“You are truly a magnificent specimen,” the dragon crooned, pushing Barty upright once again. “Sadly, I do not believe that there is a secret door behind the waterfall. But come now, think back on the day you first arrived here. You were quite taken with all those ruins on the upper levels, were you not?”</p><p>“Oh,” Barty breathed. “You mean the reliefs?”</p><p>“I do so mean.”</p><p>“Well.” Barty nibbled anxiously at his lower lip. “They <em>were</em> fascinating. But I mean – I don’t need you to let me out. It would be nice, but I don’t need it.”</p><p>Voldemort did not reply but to tilt his head at Barty and hold it there, ears pricked in concentration, for a long moment.</p><p>“Tell me what you are thinking,” the dragon finally rumbled.</p><p>“If you were offering to let me out…” Barty paused, and looked down, wringing his hands. The words didn’t want to come out neatly, and he felt himself struggling with them. “I suppose I just don’t understand. I know that you kidnapped me, and, and I know that I live in here now?” He gestured around him at the sunken courtyard. “I never thought I was going to be let out of here… Not that I mind that!” He cried, hurrying to reassure the dragon. “It’s very nice in here, and you take good care of me, and I don’t mind the limited space. It’s perfectly big enough, not like you were shoving me into a little prison cell or anything. I think I wouldn’t like a prison cell. But I have trees, and water, and my canvas roof, and I think I have enough rope left over from rigging that up to make a swing with that dead tree branch that fell down during the last storm – ”</p><p>A huff of warm air passed over him as Voldemort breathed out. Barty stopped babbling.</p><p>“Am I to understand,” the dragon rumbled slowly, “that you do not <em>want</em> to be let out?”</p><p>Barty nodded.</p><p>“Not a part of you wishes to escape me and to return to your old life amongst the other humans? Not the smallest impulse remains?”</p><p>Barty shook his head furiously. The thought of going back – having to face Father – had his heart stuttering in his chest. He felt cold and hot all over as a terrible explanation for Voldemort’s odd behavior occurred to him. Was the dragon –</p><p>Was the dragon tired of him? Was Voldemort going to let Barty go?</p><p>This did not make him feel happy. In fact, he wanted to cry.</p><p>In a panic, he rushed closer and flung himself at the closest of Voldemort’s front legs. “Please don’t get rid of me!” he begged. “I want to stay here, with you, and – is there something I’m doing wrong? Something I need to do better? If you want me to be different then just tell me, and I’ll be different, I promise! Just, please, <em>please</em> don’t get rid of me…”</p><p>He sank to his knees, face buried in the warm scales, and clung with all he had. Thoughts were whirling in Barty’s head about what he would do if Voldemort tried to – to leave him. But he didn’t understand why he would! He’d been a good pet, hadn’t he? He’d never tried to escape, or complained. He always came right over to the dragon when Voldemort visited, and he’d never hidden himself from him. He’d thought Voldemort liked him. Why was this happening?!</p><p>The tip of a scaled snout nudged his side. “You need to calm down,” Voldemort said, and then proceeded to purr at him, until his breathing had calmed and Barty’s body had finally stopped trembling.</p><p>“I do not know where you came up with this ridiculous idea that I am getting rid of you,” Voldemort huffed. “That is not the case.” Barty’s head snapped up as if by a puppeteer’s string. “I intended to offer you a walk around on one of the upper levels, under the assumption that you, like all humans I have ever worked with, would leap at the chance to escape your usual confinement for a time. Of course I would have supervised you closely, and you would have been forbidden from trying to escape me.”</p><p>“... Oh,” Barty whispered. He immediately felt very stupid, and stared down at his knees in shame. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Sorry. I didn’t – didn’t think.”</p><p>Instead of replying, Voldemort was silent for a long moment.</p><p>“Let us consider this instead,” the dragon said. “I will let you out, temporarily. While you are out you will do a few favors for me, such as cleaning some stray coinage out of the cracks in the stone in my hoard-space where I cannot reach, and checking on a few of the scales on my back that I fear have not shed properly. Then you may have some time to look at the reliefs, and I will put you back in here when we are done. Are you amenable?”</p><p>Well, Barty thought rather giddily. When he put it like that…</p><p>“Yes!” the ex-prince said, and grinned helplessly. “Yes, very amenable. I promise not to run away.”</p><p>“I shall hold you to that.”</p><p>Barty stuffed a few mouthfuls of bread into his mouth in lieu of breakfast, and grabbed a fresh tomato from his (his!) garden before hurrying back to Voldemort. He was allowed to climb onto Voldemort’s back, where to Barty’s surprise he could nestle very comfortably between the bases of his wings. When he was situated, and holding tight to one of the (smaller, not serrated) scaled, horn-like outcroppings that ran along Voldemort’s spine, they left.</p><p>Rather, Voldemort climbed out of the sunken courtyard with graceful ease, and Barty held on for dear life while gaping at the difference in perspective. There was, he realised now, more than one level to the entire complex of ruins. The sunken courtyard was sunken multiple times – he’d simply never noticed that it was so because his point of view had been so limited!</p><p>“Wow…” he murmured.</p><p>A few levels traversed, and a couple of ruined buildings circumnavigated, saw Voldemort slinking into a deceptively thin-looking breach in the side of a massive ancient building. The interior was well-lit, somehow, with dappled patches of sun – Barty looked up and saw some fairly large portions of the ceiling missing. Before he could look farther, Voldemort had twisted his neck around and nudged Barty firmly off his back, stretching his wing out as some sort of ramp. The ex-prince scrambled down it, trying not to hurt him, but not to fall too quickly, either.</p><p>Finally his feet found solid ground (grass and a moss-covered outcrop of ancient stone), and Barty sat down with a relieved thud. He looked around again, and this time was able to notice a large, almost burned-looking indentation in the ground on the far side of the building, under an overhanging, ruined roof. Close to that hollow there was –</p><p>Barty gasped, and slapped his hands to his mouth.</p><p>He’d never seen so much gold! Not even in the royal treasury, what little he could recall of the one visit he’d had when he was young and Mother had still been alive and well enough to walk. Voldemort was richer than Father’s entire kingdom!</p><p>There was a faint nudge at his back. “You may go closer,” Voldemort told him. “But know that I am intimately connected with even the smallest fragment of value, and I will know if you make any attempt to remove a single coin.”</p><p>“I won’t,” Barty promised breathlessly. Without a single second thought he pattered up to it, feeling dizzy with the sheer sight of such a treasure. Moving slowly and carefully, he dipped his hands into the pile. When Voldemort didn’t growl about him touching it, he lifted them up again, cupped, before opening his fingers and watching as gold spilled through them.</p><p>“Oh, gosh, is that – !”</p><p>He fished through the pile in front of him and found the dark glint that had caught his attention. It was – an ancient adamantium ducat. Barty trembled from the sheer weight of the history he held in his hands, and ever so gently put it back into the pile.</p><p>“What are you exclaiming about?” Voldemort asked, head looming over Barty’s shoulder.</p><p>Barty pointed to the coin with a trembling hand. “That’s an <em>adamantium ducat</em>,” he said. “From the ancient Norman empire, before the Statute was put in place!”</p><p>Instead of reacting with the appropriate awe to such wealth discovered hiding in his hoard, Voldemort only twisted his head around to stare at Barty with a particular, draconic expression that Barty had long since realised meant ‘confusion’. “And so?” he said. “I have piles on piles of such coins. They’re nothing special.”</p><p>“<em>Piles on piles</em> – !”</p><p>Barty had to take a moment to lie down, so that he could get over the shock. Voldemort snorted down at him in amusement, and proceeded to lengthen how long he needed to lie down by telling Barty all about the other treasures of the Norman empire that he held – and after that, things from such magnificently far-away places as Kizuno, and Nambay, and Khemet, and – It was far too much. Barty’s head wouldn’t stop spinning.</p><p>“Mercy, please, master!” he finally begged. “This poor human can’t comprehend your sheer ungodly wealth!”</p><p>He’d meant the ‘master’ as a joke, of course – a mimicry of how the clever slaves always behaved in the tragical comedies that were put on in the royal theater. But as the word left his mouth, Barty felt as though something had changed within him. Or perhaps, something had already been changed for a long time, and only now had he finally acknowledged it?</p><p>He didn’t have any time to consider this, because Voldemort had fixed him with an intense gaze, and wasn’t saying anything more about treasures.</p><p>“... Voldemort?” Barty asked hesitantly.</p><p>The scaled snout descended without warning, prodding him in the belly. Barty gasped, and reflexively tried to curl up – why, he wasn’t sure. He was ticklish, but no matter how he trusted Voldemort – and he did trust the dragon! – there was just something ever so slightly unnerving about having such a large mouth full of pointed teeth so close to his vital organs. He couldn’t finish the action, of course – Voldemort’s snout was in the way, and when his legs drew themselves up, they did nothing but press against the underside of the dragon’s jaw.</p><p>“You will call me this from now on,” Voldemort hummed, nuzzling into Barty’s stomach again.</p><p>“Wh – ” Barty stopped himself. “... Master, you mean?”</p><p>“Just so,” the dragon said, and purred.</p><p>… Did he want to do that, Barty wondered? Was this okay, for a human and a dragon to have such a – a – relationship? Was it a relationship, or was this just how dragons were?</p><p>Maybe it didn’t matter, though, because Barty tried to imagine calling Voldemort ‘Master’, and he felt no disgust or fear, the way he’d expected. Instead, there was only a sense of peace, and in his mind the life he’d led Before, of Prince and Son and Unworthy Boy, slipped even farther and farther away from him. Just him and Voldemort – no! Just him, Barty, and his Master…</p><p>Voldemort made all the decisions anyway, Barty thought. He took care of all of Barty’s needs, and kept boundaries on where Barty could or couldn’t go. All Barty had to do was please him – and Voldemort, <em>Master</em>, was so much easier to please than Father had ever been.</p><p>“... Okay,” Barty said, and reached up boldly to pat the tip of Voldemort’s scaled nose. “Master.”</p><p>After a bit more nuzzling, Voldemort let Barty stand back up. He was carefully directed to various spots around the massive pile of coins and treasures, where there were little ruin-made crevices in the rock, and from those crevices he fished out ancient coins, rings, and other kinds of jewelry with his tiny, agile human hands. When that chore had been taken care of, and once he had peeled off an old, disintegrating piece of shed scale from the dragon’s back, near where the base of his leathery wings met the rest of him, Barty was allowed – wonder of wonders – to wander.</p><p>Voldemort followed him, of course. The dragon didn’t hover unduly, and Barty was more or less free to go to whichever ruined wall caught his fancy the most. But he was undoubtedly there, within sight of Barty at all times. Voldemort had very good hearing, so Barty was pretty sure that remaining in Barty’s line of sight was a benefit for the dragon, not something merely intended for the dragon to prevent him from trying to escape. It was to remind Barty that Voldemort was watching, and not to even think of it.</p><p>Barty supposed it was a good strategy for most humans. The thing was that Barty had no intention of escaping, and he only found the constant, dark presence reassuring.</p><p>The sun was high overhead, and Barty’s stomach starting to rumble, when Voldemort came close enough to cast a shadow over him. “I believe it is time for you to go back to your courtyard,” the dragon rumbled.</p><p>Barty tore his eyes away from the relief – this one depicting strange, jeweled, winged humans – and looked up at the dragon. “Yes, Master,” he murmured.</p><p>He felt a little sad that he hadn’t had time to look at everything, but maybe since he’d behaved himself this time, he’d be allowed out again in the future. Barty hoped that this was the case.</p><p>Maybe… maybe he could ask?</p><p>It took a bit of time to work up the courage to ask. In that time Barty scrambled back onto Voldemort’s back, and allowed the dragon to transport him back to the inescapable sunken courtyard where he had been living for the past… past…</p><p>Months? Barty thought it must have been over a month for certain, but he had no real sense of how many months had passed after that. It was still warm and cozy in the forest where Voldemort lived, but the land here was so different from the land where Father’s kingdom was that Barty wasn’t sure if this was reliable for time-telling. Maybe this forest didn’t have seasons.</p><p>This train of thought offered him another question for the dragon. As he slipped back onto the ground, he wondered if he could ask both – if either one would be acceptable. But in the end, he did not know if he actually cared how long it had been, so he picked the question that he most wanted an answer to.</p><p>“Vol – Sorry,” he corrected himself hurriedly. “Master?”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“Will you – ” Barty swallowed. “May I be allowed out… again? Not now or even tomorrow, but, some time in the future maybe?”</p><p>The dragon’s head tipped to the side, and one red eye scrutinised him. Then, when Barty was about to lose his nerve and look away, Voldemort nodded.</p><p>“You may,” he proclaimed. “Do not beg me to select the dates. I will grant you walks when I feel the whim.”</p><p>Barty couldn’t help himself. He squeaked happily, and skipped forward to hug Voldemort’s head, just below his eye. “Thank you!” he cried. “Thank you so much, Master. I promise I won’t be a nuisance about it.”</p><p>And he wasn’t.</p><p>Things fell into a routine, again, but now the routine was quite different than it had been. It changed more often, too.</p><p>Barty continued not keeping track of days, or the passage of time in general beyond what time of day it currently was. Voldemort – no, he reminded himself, <em>Master</em> – brought him more clothing than just his two white linen tunics and his two pairs of brown cotton trousers. Still no pants, but there were now two pairs of black trousers, and two black cotton tunics with long sleeves. He was brought a better bedroll, and the materials for fire-making and cooking. It was more traveling gear than what would be found in a real kitchen, but Barty luxuriated in the ability to make real stew, and to cook fresh meat, which Master had started to bring sometimes in very small portions. He always told Barty what it was, so Barty knew how to best cook it, but it was a rare treat. For the most part, Barty still ate only cured meats.</p><p>The visits outside the courtyard – walks, as Master called them – happened far more often, and, Barty thought, fairly regularly. At first they always went in roughly the same manner. Master would wake Barty up early, carry him out of the courtyard, and have him do a small set of chores before allowing him to wander freely through the ruins. Barty always did the chores without complaint. It wasn’t like they were difficult, after all. He could certainly count coins and write down the results, or search for a lost item from the hoard, or clear away intrusive vines, or – though this one had baffled him at first – clean a section of Master’s scales with the indicated water.</p><p>As time went on, the lists of chores for each walk began to get longer. The chores too got more involved, but Barty didn’t mind this either. Instead of cutting his time with the ruins short, the longer time for chores would just extend Barty’s time outside the courtyard entirely. It got so that Master would allow him to prepare a lunch to take with him in the mornings before taking him out. Barty was grateful for this as well, because as the chores had gotten more involved, the walks had gotten even more regular. The ex-prince was very sure that they were happening at least every other day, and sometimes multiple days in a row.</p><p>Maybe the dragon was lonely, Barty mused one day as he cleaned a wall of mossy growth that Master had declared ‘unsightly’. A human living in these circumstances probably would have been lonely, he knew, but Master was a dragon and was very much not human. Barty didn’t know much about dragons, aside from how dangerous they were.</p><p>Master wasn’t dangerous to him, though.</p><p>Barty paused in his work to sneak a glance at the massive dragon lying curled up on the other end of the room. Master’s eyes weren’t closed, exactly, but the slightly cloudy second eyelid had shifted to cover them up. Barty knew enough now to know that Master used this when he was flying – apparently dust was dangerous up in the air! – but also when he was lost in thought while on the ground.</p><p>Master was lost in thought a lot, now that Barty thought of it. Then again, he was incredibly smart, so that made sense. There were some things he didn’t know about humans, but how could he? It wasn’t like he was a human.</p><p>Barty took a chance and smiled fondly at Master before going back to work.</p><p>He hadn’t taken more than a few more scrapes at the moss before a deep, cavernous voice spoke. “What was that look for?”</p><p>Barty jumped, and dropped the tool he’d been using. Warily he looked back over to see Master’s eyes entirely revealed, and his head no longer resting directly on the floor.</p><p>“Um – wh-what look?” he mumbled awkwardly, and scrambled to pick the chisel back up.</p><p>“You smiled at me with a valence I have not yet seen on your face,” Master said. “Nor have I seen such an expression on a human before despite my familiarity with most of the body language of your species, so you will explain yourself.”</p><p>Oh, <em>no</em>.</p><p>Barty stared miserably down at the chisel, and then placed it back on the ground. In order to give himself a bit of time to think, he began to walk closer to where Master was sprawled out on the ground in a dark, gleaming pile of scales and horns and sharp bits.</p><p>He couldn’t ignore the order, of course. Master was in charge. Because he’d been told to answer, Barty would have to answer, and the dragon would undoubtedly know if Barty had lied. Not that he had a good lie ready, anyway. He’d always been a terrible liar in all ways – coming up with them, telling them, keeping them straight.</p><p>The red eyes drilling into him seemed dangerous in a way they hadn’t since Barty had been free. At least, at that time, he had thought himself free. He wasn’t certain now. He felt a lot freer now than he had then, and again, that rush of warmth rose fluttering into his chest like a fairy wind. Master had given him that freedom, but Barty was unable to articulate how, or why it was freedom.</p><p>But perhaps he could explain it that way, couldn’t he?</p><p>When the ex-prince reached the spot just before and beneath Master’s head, he knelt down on both knees, hands resting on his thighs, and bowed his head.</p><p>“I’m sorry if you took offense, Master,” he murmured first of all. “I meant none.”</p><p>There was a draconic rumble, and a whiff of hot air that smelled of brimstone and carbon wafted through Barty’s hair. “Stop stalling,” Master said.</p><p>Barty trembled.</p><p>“I was just – smiling,” he whispered. It didn’t matter how low his voice was. Master would hear it regardless. “It’s hard to explain,” he went on. “May I – may I take a while? Or do you not care about the context?”</p><p>“Are you plotting an escape, Barty?”</p><p>Master rarely said Barty’s name aloud. Master’s voice rarely sounded that cold and distant, either, and Barty shrunk into himself even as he shook his head ferociously.</p><p>“I’m not,” he protested. “I would never – I said I wouldn’t!”</p><p>“Then what?”</p><p>The once Prince took a deep breath.</p><p>“You remember how I came here?” he asked. “Of course I never intended to fulfill this, but I had been told to find you and kill you. The man who told me that was – well, is, I suppose – my f-father.”</p><p>He took yet another deep breath and did his best to plow on. “I’m – well, I was – the crown prince of the kingdom of Ministerium. My father is the king there. But my mother died when I was very young, and I have no siblings, and my father did not think that I was – He didn’t like me.” His voice was threatening to choke him up, so he paused for a moment. There was a thought in his mind that he had pointedly kept himself from thinking for a good long while, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to speak it, even though the topic of this conversation was likely to bring it out regardless.</p><p>Master broke the silence before Barty could speak again. “Don’t humans actively care for their young?” he asked.</p><p>“They’re supposed to, I think,” Barty said. “I had nannies, and I suppose they took care of me, but father was never – he wasn’t interested.” He hung his head, and reached out to touch the scales on Master’s snout, because he needed some form of help to say this. “But I wasn’t manly enough for him. I liked books too much and cried too much, and I liked to watch the knights practicing their sword drills too much.”</p><p>When no further comment was made, he went on. “The problem was that I don’t have any siblings, so I couldn’t be removed from the line of succession without destablising the kingdom. Instead he would get angry at me for almost everything, and – ” He broke off to suppress an anguished sniffle. It still wasn’t enough to prevent a few tears from escaping. “See? I cry too much…” he mumbled in self-deprecation.</p><p>“All humans cry a lot. I see no difference.”</p><p>Barty chuckled weakly, and shuffled closer to Master until he could press himself against the warm scales. His arms weren’t long enough to wrap all the way around Master’s neck except at the very top of his neck where it met his head, but Barty did his best all the same.</p><p>“I guess I just,” he said, and had to pause as his breath hitched. “I just – I think he never – never expected me to actually be able to kill you. He told me to come here and kill you s-so that I would die – ”</p><p>He hadn’t meant to say it, but there it was. Now that he’s made it live in the air, he couldn’t take it back, and Barty began to sob quietly into Master’s scales.</p><p>“N-nobody’s ever really taken care of me, never as well as y-you have, Master, and I – I really appreciate it. I…”</p><p>He swallowed, and had to take a moment to force his mouth into the proper shape.</p><p>“I love you, for that.”</p><p>The ex-prince fell silent then, for there was nothing else to say nor any more sounds to make save for his lingering tears. Apparently Master did not see the need for anything more to be said, either, for he remained silent as well. Barty refused to relinquish his hold, but did squeeze a little tighter.</p><p>“Is this a romantic love?” the dragon finally asked. “Do humans require romantic reciprocation?”</p><p>“I don’t know, but I don’t require it,” Barty said. “As long – as long as you don’t get rid of me – ”</p><p>A horrible thought struck him, and he reared back so he could look up at Master. “You won’t get rid of me, right, Master?” he hurried to ask. “I promise this won’t change anything! I’ll still do all the chores you want me to do and I’ll behave myself. I never want to go back. Father doesn’t want, nobody ever did, except you – I just want to stay here forever. Please.”</p><p>There was a rumbling noise coming from Master’s chest. Barty listened to it for a few moments without comprehension, before he realised that it was that same deep purring he’d heard a few times before. With this realisation he pressed his ear even closer to the smooth scales next to him, enjoying the vibrations that traveled through and into his own body.</p><p>“I will not get rid of you,” Voldemort said, and Barty could do nothing but feel warm. “I would be very foolish to throw such a unique human away.”</p><p>He was going to start crying again, wasn’t he?</p><p>“Thank you, Master,” Barty whispered.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>;_; I love them</p></blockquote></div></div>
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